Abstract [en]

Aim: The share of young people seeking a place to live, in the range of 18-30 years old, will in the near future increase. Parallel to this the Swedish population tends to expand and become even older. This change in population, expects to put big demands on the municipalities and the housing companies, who needs to be able to supply both modern suitable living quarters, appropriate for the older generation and also living quarters who young people demand. The purpose of this study, by order of Uppsalahem, is to examine the segments, young and old, respecting their willingness to pay and demand for the right type of place to live in.

Method: In this study has a quantitative method of data collection been used, and two questionnaires have been implemented. The surveys generated a great material of data. This collection of material have been worked up and analysed and after that have a gather of material been done. The surveys were a sort of a web- based questionnaire who was sent out to the respondents. The email addresses were picked from Uppsalahems housing queue register. Totally 1624 surveys were sent out of whom 806 were sent out to the segment of young people and the remaining 818 to the segment of older people. Studies of literature have also been done and this underlies and constitutes the frame of reference for this study.

Result and Conclusions: By the two questionnaire surveys, I have been able to identify how the demand is for apartments aimed to seniors and youth in Uppsala, and what type of apartment that is requested by the two segments. The study shows that there is a demand for these types of apartments. Judging from the two questionnaire surveys, seniors are to a greater extent than young people asking for an apartment specifically targeted to the specific customer group. Further, the study provided answers to what factors the customer considers to play the greatest role in the choice of housing. The questionnaire surveys also identified the willingness to pay of the two customer groups and the answers indicate that both the young and the older would be able to pay slightly more for their housing than they do today.

The willingness to pay for an apartment with a higher standard was also explored. An overall limit on the customer groups were difficult to establish but the result showed that young people are willing to pay, in principle, as much for a kitchen with a higher standard as for a bathroom with it. The seniors, however, showed a greater interest to pay slightly more for the kitchen than the bathroom.

Suggestions for future research: A proposal to continuing studies within this subject is to implement a survey about Uppsalahems “seniorboende” concept. The ambition with this study could be to discover what Uppsalahem should give priority to regarding the expand and development of future housing for the older generation. Further proposal to continuing studies is to complement this study with an extensive investigation about home-owners and people who are living in a terrace house. A motive to do this kind of research, is all the older people who are home-owners or living in terrace house today, but in the near future will seek smaller less demanding housing.

Contributions of the thesis: The objective with the final result is that it will contribute Uppsalahem with new facts. The thesis helps the housing company in their work to create strategies for them to work in order to best be able to satisfy the young and the elderly housing needs.